Author's Note: I'm sorry I'm a little late getting this chapter up. It's been busy at my job for the past couple of days, plus I've been just a tad obsessed with playing the remake of Pokemon Pearl. As they say though, better late than never.
Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon, nor do I own the works of H.P. Lovecraft.
Chapter 4: The Insiders
Ami couldn't help but feel like the biggest idiot in the world the moment she saw Satoru and Erica sitting in the church with the rest of the Knights of Dagon. The blunette had almost convinced herself the two of them could be trusted, but their presence could only mean her first instincts had been right all along. Satoru was still an enemy, and he now served a new master with unknown intentions upon the Earth. Had Erica been a part of the Knights of Dagon all along? Or was she part of some other group that wanted to advance the Knights for her own benefit?
"Is something wrong Ms. Mizuno?" Ward whispered from the seat next to her.
"It's Satoru and Erica," Ami answered. "I didn't expect to see them here."
Ward nodded. "I should have warned you. Forgive me."
"The thing is Satoru is actually an old enemy from my past. It's a long story I'll gladly explain later, but him being here could make things even more dangerous for us."
"Then the two of us will have to use extra caution in our endeavor."
Suddenly a hush fell over the entire church. All eyes were now on the stage as Reverend Jim Aquarius stepped behind his pulpit, ready to give his sermon.
"Welcome my young sisters and brothers!" Reverend Jim spoke. "It warms my heart to see some new faces among us tonight. Since we have so many new people among us tonight I think it's best I tell y'all a bit about myself, about where I came from. Believe it or not, I was born a boy of privilege. I wasn't the son of a billionaire, but I was well off. For years I did as my daddy told me, I worked hard in school, studied…but then my friends by the time I found myself in college I burned out like a bottle rocket.
"I had realized I had not gone to college to follow my own dreams. All those years of hard work and study had not been for my own benefit, but for my dear old dad's. He had tried to carve me into his own image; all so I could become a rich executive like him, have a child of my own and continue the cycle. I found I had no real dreams of my own, and absolutely no interest in the field I was studying in. So…I decided to drop out of college.
"Well ladies and gentleman, you can imagine how my old man took that news. He cut me off and told me never to darken his doorstep again until I 'grew up' as he put it. The years that followed were not kind to me I'm sorry to say. I became a drifter. I did some drugs. I even got in a little trouble with the law from time to time; nothing but little stuff mind you, but no run-in with the law is ever pleasant I assure you…and then one day…I found the Lord.
"No, no! I'm not talking about the Christian god or the Muslim god or the god of any of the known faiths of our twisted world. I am talking my friends about the one true God! A god who was known by the name of Dagon by most of the people of this world, even by the good people who founded this old church, but I have heard His true name! His name is Cthulhu!"
"Praise Cthulhu!" came the collective call from everyone in the church except Ami.
"Let me tell y'all about how I came to know His glory. He began coming to me years ago in dreams. I'd find myself walking through a great city of stone built for a race of titans, with buildings built with shapes and angles that would give that M.C. Escher feller a head-trip. I kept walking until I came upon His temple. And that's when he spoke to me. He shared with me the truth of the world! Of the universe itself!
"And He also told me his age on this planet would soon begin again when the stars were in the right alignment and his city of R'lyeh rose from the depths of the ocean! That time is nigh ladies and gentlemen! The stars are right, and soon Great Cthulhu will rise and cleanse this world! A world…a world…riddled with decadence, corruption and greed! He will destroy the current order of human society and bring this world a rebirth! And we shall be His knights in this crusade!
"I was given the task of assembling you, His knights! And I am pleased to see I have so far been doing a bang-up job. Well, I've rambled on long enough for tonight. So I'll just step down, let y'all get to know one another a bit, and let you go about your assigned tasks."
Reverend Jim then stepped off the stage and many of the Knights began to scatter and talk amongst themselves. Satoru and Erica meanwhile had exited through one of the side doors of the church. Ami left Ward to go over to go follow them; assuring Ward she would return momentarily. She soon found the duo talking in the yard of the church
"You two owe me an explanation," Ami told the two as she stormed over to them. "Have you two been working with the Knights of Dagon this whole time?"
Erica sighed. "Mr. Petrov and I have infiltrated this group in order to thwart them from within. You would've realized this yourself had you taken the time to think rationally and not jump to wild conclusions."
"And I'm simply supposed to trust you? You've given me no reason at all to think you're allies."
"Let's hold on for a moment," Satoru interrupted. "Ami, what are you doing here?"
"The same thing you claim to be doing. I've infiltrated the Knights of Dagon to take them down from the inside."
"How did you even know this group was connected to the enemy?" Erica asked.
"It's Curwen, isn't it?" Satoru realized. "You came in with him."
Ami nodded. "He told me the truth about this place and asked for my help in dismantling it from the inside."
"I cannot believe one of this solar system's Sailor Guardians can be so naïve!" Erica interrupted. "Joseph Curwen is not who you think he is! He is an infamous alchemist and necromancer brought back from the dead to help the Knights with their work."
"No, he's Curwen's descendant, Charles Dexter Ward. The Knights brought him back from the dead because they mistook him for Curwen somehow."
Erica looked at Ami with confusion and utter disbelief. "What?"
"Mr. Ward wants nothing to do with what the Knights are trying to accomplish. So he's been pretending to be Curwen in order to find a way to take them down. When he found out I was Sailor Mercury, he revealed his true identity to me and asked for my help. So I agreed to join the Knights undercover as his assistant."
"And just how the hell did he find out you were a Sailor Guardian?"
"Last night, the two of us were attacked by more of those creatures, the shoggoths. I had no choice but to transform in front of Mr. Ward to try and save us both. Of course in the end, he was the one who saved me."
"You were attacked?" an alarmed Satoru asked. "Why didn't you call for us?"
"Because I don't have any way to contact you!" Ami pointed out. "Besides, I don't exactly trust either of you anyway."
"Okay! Let's just back up for a moment!" Erica told them. "You're really buying this ridiculous story Curwen is giving you about being some mistakenly resurrected descendant?"
"Why would he lie about something like that?" Ami asked.
"To gain your trust, obviously!"
"Well I certainly trust him a lot more than I trust either of you!"
"Ah! There you are, Ms. Mizuno," a familiar voice interrupted. Ami and the others looked and saw Irene heading towards them with Ward. "I thought it best if you and Joe got straight to work. I came to help show you to his lab. That is, if I'm not interrupting anything important."
"Uh, not at all. I had just come out to tell Satoru and Ms. Erica how surprised I was to see them as part of this group. But I think we've said to each other all there is to say."
Irene nodded. "Well then, let's go. Those two need to get to work on a project of their own anyway."
Irene had taken Ami and Ward back into the church, where she had led them to a back room containing a hidden door in the floor. The door led down into an underground tunnel, which Ami soon learned was part of a vast network of tunnels running underneath the entire town. Irene explained how the tunnels led to the still existing basements of the old houses and brick buildings that still stood in Innsmouth, as well as various underground chambers the people of Innsmouth had used for various purposes. Many of the chambers and basements had been converted into laboratories, complete with electronic equipment.
"I can't tell you how pleased I am about you joining us, Ami," Irene spoke as they went down the corner of another tunnel. "I'm sure you'll be an invaluable assistant to Joe."
"There's something you should probably know," Ami told Irene. "Mr. Curwen told me about where he really came from when he recruited me for your group…about how you brought him back from the dead."
Irene smirked at this. "Well, this makes things a little less awkward. It's entirely true of course. Joe is a great alchemist and necromancer who originally lived hundreds of years ago. I'm in fact a descendant of his. My family is distantly related to the Ward family, Joe's direct descendants. I won't bore you with the genealogy.
"As for how I learned about Joe's existence, it was through some family papers I came across while rummaging through the house of one of my cousins during a family reunion. I ran across a couple of letters from Joe's great-great-great-grandson, Charles Dexter Ward. It seems old Charlie came to be fascinated with Joe when he found some old portrait of him and found they were like twins. There were also some weird newspaper clippings and a couple of letters from the family doctor talking about some weird incidents connected to Charlie and certain changes the guy went through. I couldn't help but find the whole thing fascinating, so I did a little more digging.
"It didn't take too much trouble for me to figure out what had happened. Old Charlie resurrected Joe and Joe took his place after making his nitwit of a descendant disappear. Then that doctor managed to kill Joe again and buried him in Charlie's grave, which I managed to track down."
"How did you bring him back from the dead?"
"My own research. A while ago I managed to get access to the copy of the Necronomicon in Miskatonic's library and found the method for bringing someone back from the dead by reducing their remains to their 'essential salts'. Joe identified this spell as the exact same one he and his old buddies once used."
"And why did you resurrect Mr. Curwen?"
"Because I knew he'd be the best person to help us with our work. We've been struggling with a problem concerning the creatures we plan to use to help with the great cleansing, the shoggoths. You see a lot of them are dying. In fact some have perished already."
"Have you determined a cause?"
Irene shrugged. "We're not sure, but we think it might be one of two causes. It could be the level of toxins that have accumulated in the oceans over the years due to pollution, or through some unidentified form of background radiation that's been accumulating in the atmosphere for the past few years. Another of our team members discovered it a while ago. She says it doesn't conform to any type of radiation currently known to science."
Ami couldn't help but find the news about this radiation curious. She wondered if perhaps it might somehow be coming from Usagi's Legendary Silver Crystal. Ami knew for a fact the lifespan of every human on the planet would vastly increase by the dawn of the thirtieth century, and that the Silver Crystal had to be the cause. The blunette couldn't help but wonder if this radiation might be the first stage of the phenomenon leading to such a change.
"In any case, we decided we needed Joe's help to figure out a way to get the shoggoths that are still alive to reproduce," Irene continued. "We've also been experimenting with brining the dead shoggoths back to life like we did with Joe, but the results haven't been good. Joe will fill you in on all the details later. Just don't be too shocked when he shows you the shoggoths."
Ami nodded, though she didn't have to worry about being shocked by seeing a shoggoth for the first time. "There's one thing I'm wondering about Irene. Why did you join the Knights of Dagon?"
Irene immediately stopped walking and turned to face the two. "Do you really have to ask with the state of the world the way it is? We have constant wars in the Middle East and a changing climate. And the governments of one of the most powerful countries in the world isn't doing jack about any of it because it's at constant war with itself! I don't know how it is over in Japan, but here in the States our politicians are more concerned with holding onto power and beating the enemy party than with compromising and actually getting something done! Someone needs to hit the reset button on the world, and Cthulhu is the one to do it."
As they continued walking, Ami found she couldn't blame Irene for her cynicism about the world. Unlike Irene though, Ami had inside knowledge that the world would be okay. The blunette didn't know exactly how, but Ami knew once Usagi rose to power as Neo Queen Serenity and established the new Silver Millennium, the world would enter a new age of peace and prosperity. Unfortunately, Ami wasn't exactly at liberty to share this information with Irene. Even if she was though, Ami was certain Irene would never believe her, especially if Ami told her how time travel was heavily involved with the learning of this future.
Eventually Irene brought Ami and Ward to a heavy wooden door. She pushed it open for the two, revealing a fairly spacious stone chamber with large bookcases and a few metal filing cabinets lining the walls. Ami and the others had to walk down a set of four stone steps to get to the floor of the room. Each of the bookcases was almost completely full of various scientific and occult texts. In the center of the room was a large rectangular table cluttered with papers, along with beakers and test tubes containing strange powders and liquids. Ami also noticed a desktop computer at the edge of the table covered in a slight layer of dust.
"As you can see Ami, you've got your work cut out for you," Irene spoke as Ami surveyed the lab. "Joe can show you around here a little bit better than I can. Anyway, you might as well just spend the first night getting things a little more organized. Well, I have other departments to check in with, so I'll see you later."
Irene went back up the steps and shut the door tightly behind her. Both Ami and Ward breathed a sigh of relief as soon as she was gone.
"Now that we're rid of that insufferable woman, perhaps we can get to our real work," Ward spoke.
"First we should probably clean things up a little," Ami suggested, pointing to the clutter of papers on the table.
Ward gave dismissive wave to the cluttered table. "Pay no attention to this rubbish. It's merely camouflage to keep Ms. Covington from learning what I'm really up to. My real research is locked in one of those metal cabinets. We'll start with the toxin I've been trying to develop to kill the shoggoths."
Ami took another look at the dust-covered computer. "I take it all of your research is in paper form?"
"If you're talking about that infernal mechanical device Ms. Covington is so insistent I use, I find the application of ink and paper far more comfortable," Ward answered as he unlocked the bottom drawer of one of the cabinets.
"It's probably just as well," Ami responded as she sat in the chair in front of the computer and fired up the device. "If you kept your real research on this thing, there's a chance it could be hacked."
Ward froze as he pulled out the folder he wanted and gave Ami a raised eyebrow. "Hacked?"
"Uh…right. Basically it means someone using another computer could steal the information on yours."
The blonde sighed as he slammed the file drawer shut. "I knew there was a reason I didn't trust the blasted machine. This century is an age of sorcery indeed."
"We can still make use of this computer though. We simply shouldn't keep sensitive information on it…at least not without installing some safeguards."
Ward came over and set the file folder he was holding next to the computer. "I can't thank you enough for agreeing to help me with this endeavor, Ms. Mizuno."
"You can call me Ami," the blunette responded. "We may as well be on a first-name basis since we're going to be working so closely together."
Ward smirked. "This truly is an uninhibited age. Well, I suppose you can start calling me Charles."
Ami nodded. "We should get started as soon as possible. We have a lot of work to do if we have any hope of stopping the Knights from unleashing more of those monsters on the public."
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